“You know what my war was?” Tony smiled thinly. “Nothing. Four years of it. I never fired a shot in anger, never so much as got my boots wet. My entire war was spent in various tents and offices, translating acronyms between high brass of various armies who didn’t speak each other’s lingo.”
“So you stayed on for a chance to do more,” Jordan said. “Why come home this year? It doesn’t sound to me like you’re tired of it.”
He took a long time answering, as if parsing out what to say. “I’m not tired of it,” he said at last. “But I wouldn’t mind doing something—different. Ian’s an avenger, scales of justice in one hand and sword in the other. I want to do more.”
“Like what?” A group of shopping-laden housewives fussed past, but Jordan ignored them.
“I don’t know.” Tony ruffled a hand through his hair. “Make a repository for all those stories, maybe? So they aren’t forgotten and lost. No one likes to talk about their war, after it’s fought. They want to forget. And what happens when they die, and they’ve taken all their memories with them? We’ve lost it all. And we can’t.”
You should talk to my stepmother, Jordan almost said. Another refugee who only wants to forget. But it was Anneliese’s right, surely? Because her story wasn’t just pain and loss, it was shame—the shame of the SS connection, what her father had been. “I’m an American now,” she always said firmly if asked about her past.
“You know why I prefer pictures to words?” Jordan asked Tony instead. “People can’t ignore them. Most find it easier to forget the things they read than the things they see. What’s caught on film is there, it’s what is. That’s what makes pictures so wonderful, and so devastating. Catch someone or something at the right moment, you can learn everything about them. That’s why I want to record everything I see. The beautiful, the ugly. The horrors, the dreams. All of it, as much as I can get a lens in front of.”
“And how long have you known that’s what you wanted?” Tony asked. “I’m guessing when you heard that little Kodak go click for the first time.”
Jordan smiled. “How did you know?”
“Drive—you’ve got it in spades.” His eyes went over her. “I don’t have any, so I notice it when I see it.”
Jordan returned his gaze, letting her eyes go over him just as frankly. “You’re amusing when you flirt, Tony,” she said at last. “But when you’re being serious, you’re downright riveting.”
“That’s too bad. I can’t sustain serious for more than ten minutes.”
“Maybe you should practice. You might get up to fifteen.”
“My record is twelve. Who’s going to kiss who?” he asked.
“Who said there’s going to be kissing?”
“You’re thinking it. I’m thinking it.” His black eyes danced. “Who goes first? I’d hate to bump noses.”
“Why do I need to kiss you? I just took half a roll of film of your mouth as you talked. By the time I’m done cropping and filtering the image, I’ll know everything there is to know about it, without kissing you once.”
“But what a waste that would be.”
“Time in the darkroom is never wasted.”
“That depends entirely on what you’re doing down there.”
“Working. And don’t you dare say that all work and no play makes Jordan a dull girl,” Jordan added. “I hate that saying. Mostly people use it because they want me doing things for them, not for myself.”
“Besides which, they’re wrong. Work doesn’t make you a dull girl. Work makes you an absolutely fascinating girl.” He lifted her hand from the camera and kissed the pad of her index finger, the one that spent most of its time lying against the Leica’s button.
Click, went something in Jordan’s middle.
“Swan boats?” he said eventually. “Or is paddling around on a pond too boring for you, Jordan McBride? I could be persuaded to waive my fee.”
You just broke off a long engagement, a voice inside Jordan chided. You shouldn’t move too fast! But she told that voice to hush, hooking her finger at the neck of Tony’s shirt and tugging him toward her. “Maybe an alternative form of payment?”
A long, lazy, open kiss under the beating sun, Jordan’s fingertips resting against his warm throat, his thumb stroking along the line of her cheekbone. He kissed with slow, shattering thoroughness, like he could do this all day and not get tired of it, like it could take him a year if that was what she wanted. Right now, she wanted.
“Is there anywhere you have to be?” Tony said eventually, kissing along the line of her jaw toward her ear. “Or can we do this all day?”
Oh, yes, please. Jordan cleared her throat, looking down at her watch to give her breath a chance to slow. Dammit, Anneliese would be packing by now for Concord and New York, rushed off her feet. “I promised I’d help at home. Then it’s the darkroom for me—work.”
Tony dropped a last kiss below her ear, then pulled back. “All right.” No arguing that work could wait. Just assent, and that unwavering dark gaze. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ruth’s lesson. Maybe we could go to the movies after.”
“Yes,” Jordan said without hesitation. How pleasant it was just to enjoy a man’s company, his attention, his kisses without feeling the weight of expectation from parents and neighbors. When are you going to settle down, Jordan? When will you two make it official, Jordan?
How pleasant to enjoy a man who was not official, not in the slightest.
Chapter 40
Ian
July 1950
Boston
Ian was surprised how much he enjoyed showing Ruth how to handle her half-size instrument. Perhaps because she was so voracious, so desperate for everything he could show her. Weren’t most children her age playing with dolls rather than begging to play scales? She hung rapt as he took her through positioning and stance, the basics. “Always tune to an A,” Ian said, and Ruth sang a perfect A unprompted. “Very good. Remember that Saint-Saëns I was playing, how that began?” She hummed the opening in G major. Ian glanced at Jordan McBride, sitting behind the shop counter with a cup of tea. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has perfect pitch, Miss McBride.”
Ruth’s sister beamed. She’d brought the little girl into the shop just as Ian was hanging up his battered fedora on an antique umbrella stand and Tony was flipping the sign around to read Closed. Ian had been feeling a touch impatient with himself for making this offer when there was already so much to do, but Ruth’s face had turned on the violin so eagerly and Jordan McBride’s gaze followed her with such happiness, his misgivings faded into a wry smile. “Take your instrument, and dear God, do not drop it. To destroy a Mayr, even a replica, would be a crime against art.” Jordan puttered about preparing tea in Minton cups, and Tony leaned on the counter watching her do it.
“Enough for now,” Ian said at last, after his pupil had wobbled through her first one-octave scales. Ruth begged “More, please!” but Jordan reached over the counter to take the violin.